Discovery Inks Multi-year Distribution Deal With Hulu

(RTTNews) - Discovery Inc. (DISCA) said it has signed a multi-year distribution agreement with streaming service Hulu that will bring thousands of episodes of Discovery shows and five Discovery networks to Hulu's on-demand and live TV subscription services.

Shares of Discovery are gaining almost 8 percent in Wednesday's trading following the announcement.

The deal with Discovery will increase Hulu's offering of Discovery programming to nearly 4,000 episodes of shows including "Deadliest Catch," "MythBusters," "Naked and Afraid," "Say Yes to the Dress," "Property Brothers" and cooking competition "Chopped." Hulu gains the exclusive streaming rights for all these episodes.

The deal will also bring five additional Discovery networks - Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Motor Trend and Animal Planet - to Hulu's live television plan, Hulu With Live TV.

These five additional channels, which will be available to stream live beginning in December 2018, increases the Discovery offering on Hulu's Live TV to eight networks.

HGTV, Food Network and Travel Channel are already available on the service since its launch through a previous agreement that Hulu entered into with Scripps Networks Interactive, now owned by Discovery.

As part of the deal, Hulu has also reached a licensing agreement with Oprah Winfrey's Network or OWN - which is part of the Discovery Networks family. Under the licensing agreement, four of the network's scripted series will be brought exclusively to Hulu.

All past episodes of Tyler Perry's "The Haves and the Have Nots," "If Loving You is Wrong," "The Paynes" and "Love Thy Neighbor" will now be available to stream for the first time, only on Hulu. " They join the complete library of OWN series, "Queen Sugar" from Ava DuVernay and Warner Horizon.

Hulu is co-owned by Walt Disney Co. (DIS), 21st Century Fox Inc. (FOX, FOXA), Comcast Corp's (CMCSA, CMCSK) NBCUniversal and AT&T Inc.'s (T) WarnerMedia.